


Common Ground

by rthstewart



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Gen, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 05:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2570240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rthstewart/pseuds/rthstewart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Steve Rogers and Captain Ichabod Crane find common ground about tea parties and go out for pho.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Common Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-Captain America 2: The Winter Solider; pre-season 1 Sleepy Hollow finale. 
> 
> This was actually written a year ago during the federal government shut-down and sequester. With the US mid-term election yesterday, I got depressed and decided to dust it off.
> 
> To that end, I’m an old, cranky fannish liberal and abject politicizing follows. I get called an immoral un-Christian in certain segments of the Narnia fandom all the time. If you think Senator Ted Cruz (Wingnut-TX) is the great white hope of American civilization, just turn around now. Flames shall be used to light my Sambuca and the beacons of Minas Tirith.

It’s not a coincidence. Steve doesn’t believe in those anymore. Not with Wikileaks, Snowden, aliens falling from the sky, and S.H.I.E.L.D. being prepared for it.  How S.H.I.E.L.D. knew this time, how S.H.I.E.L.D. knew they would both be here, in Washington, at the same time, in the same place, well, if Steve wanted to know, he could ask.

He has a pretty good idea, regardless. He sees it everywhere, that trade-off between security and freedom where liberty was the loser.

He’s not sure what he thinks about elections anymore, either, when a segment of Americans willingly support the same sort of people he was fighting in Europe 70 years ago. Some Germans supported Hitler, too, and Himmler, and all the rest of that sorry lot, for a while. What do you do when people willingly elect politicians whose first order of business is to make sure they never have to run for office again? How can you negotiate with politicians about keeping the U.S. of A open for business when they really, _really_ believe that others have no right to exist? What do you do when people refuse to admit basic facts, like where the President was born? His Brooklyn public schools never taught that the Earth was 6,000 years old and God could have ridden a dinosaur into Jerusalem.  

Steve learned about the gas chambers in occupied Europe after he woke up. He wasn’t surprised. He was surprised that the same sort of racist demagogues are so popular in America now.

It’s fear and he sees it everywhere – fear of a dark face, fear of a woman who has a mind and will speak it, fear of the other, fear of what you can’t control, fear of change.

They fear the government and they’ve got it all wrong. They deride the government of the Great Depression that Steve believes in, the one that gave a poor man a hand up and gave a child something to eat, the government that built bridges and supported even out-of-work actors and artists. The government they should fear, and don’t, is the one that Steve has uncomfortably been drafted into. He’s a soldier in a “war on terror” whose Generals seem accountable to nothing but a vague notion of what they believe is “the public good.”

Because he’s curious and holds on to even vain hopes, he wonders maybe _I’ll find people more like me there_. So he goes to the Values Voters Summit. It’s a mistake.

It’s like Alice stepping through the looking glass into an ugly, brutal Wonderland; Alice wants her tea party back.

He sees a sign that says _Put the White Back in the White House_ and he wants to break it over someone’s head. They speak of “American values” and Steve doesn’t think that bigotry is a value worth preserving. Too many good men and women died. The men spewing hate into microphones of wars on their beliefs sound too much like Loki did, and Hitler before him. Steve knows. He was there. He’s heard it all before.

Showing how much they _really_ don’t know about him, his Captain America image is all over the Values Voters Summit. Tables sell buttons, bumper stickers, and iPhone cases. Steve takes pictures on his phone and sends them to the guy in legal at S.H.I.E.L.D. who helped him with his apartment lease. _I didn’t approve this. If S.H.I.E.L.D. did this, stop it. If S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t, stop it_. _If you don’t, I will._

He always gets teased for texting full sentences and proper grammar. That old school education will never leave him.

The women in pearls and red dresses try to flirt with him. With his cropped hair, clean shave, and traditional clothes – Steve still favors button shirts and khakis over skinny jeans -- they think he is one of them. They mouth an empty gospel of traditional values, guns, and vengeful God. All he can think of is Agent Carter in her red dress and how she could land a beautiful punch on a bully’s nose.

Steve doesn’t like bullies, either, and the Values Voter Summit is full of them.

So he leaves the Washington hotel.

He goes to the World War II Memorial on the Mall. He’s been there before – took Peggy once and now jogs around it a few times on his daily circuit – but he really doesn’t like it very much.  The Memorial is grandiose in all the wrong ways and its design offends his aesthetic sense. He prefers the monuments that tell a more personal story, in the way that the 9/11 tribute at the Pentagon takes the same approach as the plane did; or how the Vietnam Memorial invites you into it to contemplate, by name, all those who died.

The old men and women who come to the World War II Memorial are his contemporaries, and so he goes for them. He holds their arms and canes and pushes their wheelchairs as they stroll about the fountain and pillars. He chats politely with the grandchildren, and listens to the stories of the Greatest Generation. Odd that he is one of that Greatest Generation, too. To the man or woman, each of them would deny it.

Today, though, a cabal of Republicans from the House of Representatives has shut down every monument on the Mall because they are hateful jerks who refuse to do their jobs and don’t care that people suffer as a result. The closest he feels to real, blind anger that day is when he sees a Congressman berating a park ranger for closing the Memorial as if it is her fault. Steve won’t move the barriers – if Congress wants its monuments it should pay for them and the rangers who protect American heritage. Those doing their jobs without any promise of pay are the real patriots. For the first time in his life, he is genuinely embarrassed to be an American. He wonders if S.H.I.E.L.D. legal would be able to get him out of jail if he takes a swing at the frothing Congressman.

Steve is sorry, very sorry, and angry, for the aging veterans who can’t see their monument, but really the Values Voters Summit has got this right. It’s a matter of personal responsibility and if it’s so important for someone to be able to enjoy America’s monuments, they shouldn’t have elected idiots determined to destroy them.

As has been happening, someone does finally move the sawhorse barricades and the veterans from Ohio and Oregon and the survivors of units who saw action in Guadalcanal and Italy hobble onto the Monument’s grounds. Steve spends an hour listening to rambling stories about the Pacific campaign and Operation Husky, makes sure that all the trash is picked up, and keeps the children from touching things they aren’t supposed to.

He speaks to the park ranger later, who has discreetly not been looking at the old men and women being wheeled around the pillars that mark the States and territories of the Memorial.

“Thank you,” he tells her. “Thank you for doing your job, even if Congress isn’t doing theirs.”

After the World War II Memorial, Steve debates whether to go to the Lincoln and then across Mem Bridge to Arlington Cemetery or go through the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial. Given the number of times he’s heard “forefather” invoked, and inaccurately, if he’s recalling his grade school American history class with Miss Thompson correctly, he decides on the Jefferson Memorial. It’s closed, too, of course, but he enjoys taking in the atmosphere.

That’s when it happens. On the steps to the Monument, behind another white sawhorse barricade, Steve sees a tall man leaning eagerly in, hoping for a look inside at the Jefferson statue. The whole of it catches Steve’s attention and he thinks the man is familiar in an out-of-place sort of way.

Is it the British accent? The unfailing, other-worldly politeness? The way the man doesn’t fit in with the odd clothes and boots – that’s something Steve remembers well until Nat took him shopping with a brisk, _don’t let S.H.I.E.L.D. decide how to package you_. 

Steve steps to the side, sits on a bench near the leafy cherry trees, checks his phone again, and puts the face he just saw with the email he glanced over that morning in his apartment.

_Ichabod Crane._

This is all S.H.I.E.L.D. Steve really doesn’t like being manipulated but at least this time it’s actually because someone is being thoughtful and thinks he can be helpful – he immediately suspects Nat.

He waits and watches as Crane hoists a boy, and then a girl, and then another boy on his tall shoulders for a look inside the monument. A little embarrassed that Crane thought of it first, Steve puts his phone away and joins the crowd at the barricade and lends a hand. He lifts up the breathless, squirming kids for a better view. The tourists from Wisconsin and California thank them and Steve gets a look and an upraised eyebrow from Crane as he automatically responds, "You're welcome, ma'am," and "Glad to be of service, sir."

Just as Steve did, Crane has an ear for the old-fashioned and polite; they each recognize the soldier in the other.

By unspoken accord, they both cede their place at the sawhorse barricade and step away from the crowd, toward the Tidal Basin. It’s warm for October but, given the sequester and government shut-down, the paddle boats aren’t in the water.

Steve decides on his strategy and holds out his hand. “I’m Captain Steve Rogers. You’re Captain Ichabod Crane? From Sleepy Hollow, up in New York, right?”

Ichabod turns wary and looks around nervously.

“I know because of my job with the U.S. government,” Steve explains. “I think someone thought it was a good idea that we meet and talk for a little while.”

“So not a chance meeting, then?”

“No.” Crane puts out his hand and they shake. However difficult it’s been for Steve, and it’s not been easy, at least he’d only been in the freeze for 70 years. “I had something similar happen to me, though not for nearly as long.”

Crane looks him up and down, appraising and curious. “Did your wife enspell you as well?”

“No, nothing like that. My mishap involved science experiments and before you ask, no, I can’t explain what the difference is.”

A deflated family walks by. The father is carrying a little boy and a harried mother is explaining to a crying toddler why she won’t see the panda cub at the Zoo and the dinosaurs at Natural History.

“I do not understand why this is all closed,” Crane says as they watch the family shuffle by.   “In the newspapers, I read that there is a group within the Congress who call themselves the Tea Party? Lieutenant Mills says they claim the name as tribute to our act of defiance in Boston?”

“As best I understand it, yes,” Steve replies. Crane uses the old pronunciation, _Lef-tenant_ and what Steve approves of more is that he’s awarding rank to a woman.

“Yet the taxes and budget of which they complain are all under duly enacted laws? Passed by officials elected to terms of office by means of universal suffrage?”

“That’s right.”

Crane is reminding Steve a little of Dr. Banner, not surprising since both were teachers.

“I think perhaps those who use the festive term ‘tea party’ do understand what we meant by the destruction of the tea in Boston?”

Even if S.H.I.E.L.D. set this up, he decides he likes Crane and invites him to lunch.

Steve takes Crane to a pho place in Virginia. After the ugliness of the shut down and Values Voters Summit, he wants to be in and show off the part of America that he loves, the colors, the differences, the way others share their heritage with you. He still hasn’t tried Thai, yet. It’s on his list.

He’s enjoying being the one doing the explaining, like showing Crane how to save the contacts in his phone and close the apps to conserve battery, and how the airplanes flying in and out of National stay up. Crane texts Lieutenant Mills to tell her where he is going and with whom and gets back an _OMG! GET A PIC!_

Crane uses full sentences in his texts, too.

Over beer, skewers, and spring rolls, they talk about all the simple and obvious things -- how much everything costs, how different women’s clothing is, the glories of air conditioning, indoor plumbing, vaccinations, and modern sanitation, and why doesn’t anyone wear hats anymore? When the steaming bowls of pho arrive, they move to deeper and more confounding differences – the enticing distractions, how complex everything seems, the over-abundant choices, and how fast everything moves.   Steve tells him about how important it is to establish your own space, your own things, and to begin building your own life, preferences, and memories. He wonders if that’s just his S.H.I.E.L.D. experience, but Crane understands.

“I agree and have begun that process,” Crane says. “I do like doughnut holes, the beer is often passable, and I am enjoying baseball. Are you a supporter of the Red Sox, Captain Rogers?”

Steve doesn’t like the Sox but they find common ground in the Mets. “Lieutenant Mills has promised me a cold hot dog, warm beer, and a Mets game next year. I do hope you will agree to accompany us.”

Over a dessert of orange slices, they discuss finding a church to join – Steve gives Crane some hints on what to avoid. They leave for another time the serious discussion of how their ordeals have challenged what had been over a lifetime, some pretty basic assumptions.

They each get another beer – Crane is ironically amused that the restaurant has Sam Adams on tap – the man was apparently very fond of ale. Steve pays – he’s not sure where Crane is getting money and he resolves to talk to Nat about getting a stipend for him. They take their beers and sit outside on the restaurant’s patio.

Crane turns quiet as he watches the office workers clustered around a planter enjoying a smoking break and sees Arlington mothers pushing strollers into the shopping mall.

“You’re still in mourning,” Steve says, recognizing the signs, and knowing he still feels it, too. “If someone tells you to not live in the past, tell them to mind their own business. The good thing is that because it’s all so different, you won’t be continually reminded of the people you miss.”

“That is a heavy price,” Crane says, taking another long pull on his beer.

“Yes. It does get easier but it’s not easy, either.”

Crane’s phone rings – it’s a refrain from something classical with cannons.

Lieutenant Mills is demanding evidence that Crane met Captain America so they take a few selfies. Crane knows how to send pictures and but is very curious about the whole mechanism. Steve shows him how to set up an automatic upload to the Cloud. 

“I try to not dwell over much in the past, but I do yearn for a picture of Katrina,” Crane says as he puts his phone away.

Steve weighs the offer, isn’t sure it will help, and will probably hurt, but also remembers how he carried that picture of Peggy and still has one in his apartment.

“I still have some pictures of the people I lost,” he admits. Putting his beer down, he reaches for his backpack and the sketch pad and pencils he always carries. “Why don’t you describe Katrina to me?"

He manages a passable sketch of a pretty woman, about 30, with long reddish hair, an oval face and light eyes. Crane is delighted and moved.

They exchange cell phone numbers and Steve texts his personal email address. He assumes S.H.I.E.L.D. monitors everything. “Have the Lieutenant set up an email for you but if it’s anything serious, call me and I’ll catch the next flight up there.”

No sooner does he drop off Crane at the FBI building then his phone buzzes. Nat is demanding an update.

 

 

 

ooOOoo

 

 


End file.
